


We Sing When We Fall

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Character Development, Character Study, Dragons, End Days Canon, F/F, Friendship, Fuck Your Canon: My City Now, Game Mechanics Explained, Grief/Mourning, Growth, Hurt/Comfort, Long ass fic, Ludicrous Headcanons, Major Character Death (But Not Really), PSTD, Phila-Centric, Physical Disability, Serious Injuries, Slow Burn, THE FIC, Things Are Hard, Universe Alteration, Why It's Dangerous To Bounce Ideas With Your Angst-Loving Friends, angst angst angst, back from the dead, discontinued, dragon cuddles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So say Phila survived the fall. Say she survived it with a broken spine. Physically, it could've been a lot worse-- but a knight, no matter how strong, left maimed but without her lady, is hopeless and without purpose entirely.</p><p>Phila knows a song about this kind of cruelty. But she has no reason to sing anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> so i was gonna have an early night tonight. yknow, read some fic, chat with my friends, that sort of stuff. but i got to talking and bouncing ideas and basically fuck that i'm gonna start what may well be my longest-ass fic yet. EVERYWHERE STARTS SOMEWHERE
> 
> no idea if the whole disability thing is overstepping any bounds but please let me know if i end up doing so! i have done and will be doing extensive research on the subject so as to avoid this but i am always open to new perspectives.
> 
> buckle up fuckers, where we're going we don't need canon

_The Ylissean Order of Pegasus Knights are a proud sisterhood— since the time of Exalt Ema, just over four centuries ago, they have served in the skies alongside their comrades-in-arms on the ground, going where horses and wagons cannot and standing guard over the Exalt as the last line of defense. History knows not the exact reason the Pegasus Knights are all women and, as long as anyone remembers, have always been so. But it assumes that, at the time, it was vanishingly rare and perhaps stigmatized for men to bond with pegasi, as pegasi have long been seen as a feminine mount._  
  
_Whatever society said at the time of the Order's conception, the Pegasus Knights are nonetheless comprised exclusively of women to this day. It has, since, become tradition that the Exalt, if female, or otherwise the current Queen Consort have a Pegasus Knight for a bodyguard. This is a lucrative and vital position, and every young girl in the beginning ranks of the Pegasus Knights aspires to be top of her class, so she may have a chance to stand proudly by the Exalt's side._  
  
"… It is not unheard of, however," Phila finishes, looking up from the textbook, "For the relationship between Exalt and Knight to be one of romance. Exalt Elisabeth is one known example to partake in such a relationship, however tragically it was cut short. As such, following her example is not reccommended."  
  
"Not reccommended, but here we are," Emmeryn says. "We cannot always live by what history says. Elisabeth may be a cautionary tale on many accounts, but we both know we're following her example anyway."  
  
"She who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it," Phila replies. "So we're learning, and we're going to do it right."  
  
Emmeryn laughs, a light kind of laugh that comes in the rare pickets of time she can set aside her crown and the burden that comes with it— now, it sits within reach on the low stone ledge around the ugly courtyard fountain, a little circlet of gold that forms a halo on her head when she wears it. But heavy is the head that wears the crown, and for the sake of her health, Phila is glad she can set it aside sometimes, and laugh. And she does, and leans her head on Phila's shoulder. She runs a slender hand up Phila's arm, then back down, and squeezes her hand. The corners of Phila's mouth rise.  
  
"I love you," she whispers, and it feels at once like the first and thousandth time she's said it— Phila feels at once like the pockmarked teenager buckling under a title too weighty for her awkwardly-growing shoulders and the battle-scarred knight and lover she's become since. Emmeryn's hands are so soft in hers. The gold rings they exchanged those six years ago clink together when they hold hands. Phila has never felt more where she belonged. This is the love they sing songs about-- the love that fuels the songs Phila sings when she trains not only her body, but her lungs. They must be strong if she is to fight at high altitudes, after all. It is practical training that all Pegasus Knights recieve some level of, but Emmeryn loves it when she sings. So she sings.  
  
She kisses Emmeryn's head. Her hair is so soft. She is so warm in Phila's arms. Her heart beats sure and ever-onwards.  
  
Sometimes Phila worries about the attempts that have been made on Emmeryn's life— but every time, she survives them. It is now, in their corner of the garden, on the cool stone ledge of a fountain, surrounded by flower-filled hedges and shaded by a tree that still has the practice sword Chrom tossed up there by accident years ago, that Phila lets herself know, sure as her big lover's heart beats inside her ribs, that Emmeryn will keep surviving them and keep living, keep loving with everything she has.  
  
Oh, she'll fret and worry and fuss once they're back inside and Emmeryn's crown is back on her head. And Emmeryn will touch Phila's face with those slender hands, harder at the tips from writing millions of letters and signing billions of documents, and tell her _hush, love, I'm not going anywhere until Ylisse is ready._  
  
Phila takes comfort in this, and will take one hand and clutch it, kiss it, then kiss her. Emmeryn is stubborn, above all else— Phila knows this firsthand. She would not allow it, to be assassinated when her siblings are still too immature to take the throne, when they have one child that's only two and one that's barely three months. She would not.  
  
It is now Phila lets herself think _yes, this is the way it will be forever._


	2. Through Lover's Pain

Phila wakes, spitting sand and rubbing it from her eyes. She sits up, feeling a distinct amount of a heavy nothing where her legs should be, but gasping for air like it’s the first breath she’s taken in days. She coughs, spits out sand, and finally blinks her eyes clear enough to look around.  
  
Sand. Rocks. Wasteland, as far as the eye can see. Half-buried bodies in silver and green litter the landscape, as if carelessly tossed about by whoever dragged them here. Phila feels a bad taste in her mouth— it could be her dry tongue, or it could be the thought of such disrespect to the dead. Is this what they do with all dead bodies in Plegia— leave them to rot in the desert, picked clean by buzzards or scavenged by rodents? Disgusting.  
  
(It is, actually, what Plegians do with the bodies of their enemies. They burn the bodies of their countrymen, to prevent any dark magic from reanimating them— a practice borne of spite. Phila learns later that the future is, apparently, full of shambling undead in tattered Ylissean livery.)  
  
Oh, and she can’t feel her legs. That is a setback.  
  
It comes back in bits and pieces. The afternoon in the garden. The evening abduction disguised as a peace talk with Plegian diplomats. Imprisonment. Flying, as fast as her mount’s wings would carry her. The castle courtyard. Emmeryn on the precipiece, so far away. The summoned archers. Her lieutenants, Eden and June, shot down. The arrow that pierced her arm. The arrow that knocked poor Allegra from the sky. Falling. The ground. The sickening break of bone. Emmeryn’s scream. The pain that flared hot and blinding as the sun. Darkness. Panic. Failiure. Despair. Regret. Nothing.  
  
There is still an arrow in her arm. She stares at it, snaps it in half, and yanks it out. She’s sure it’s supposed to hurt, but it doesn’t. It’s just bleeding down her arm, soaking the tattered blue of her sleeve, dripping onto the sand. Her hands feel numb, but she can feel them.  
  
She tries to stand. Her legs do not obey. She tries to tell her toes to wiggle. They do not. She makes a fist and hits one, as hard as she can. She feels nothing.  
  
Oh, fuck.  
  
The pain hits like a charging pegasus. Phila doubles over, suddenly nauseous, and grips her bleeding arm. She feels ill, but swallows the bile that rises in her throat. Something tells her she won’t be able to spare the water.  
  
The pain fades, and the grief hits. And all she can think is no, no, it’s not true, it’s some sort of cruel joke— before she realizes she knows exactly what happened.  
  
She should have died. She should have died, so at least then she would’ve properly completed her duty— not been spared by something-or-other that had a cruel sense of humor. There is a song Phila knows about separated lovers, and it goes like this:  
  
 _Death took her in the morning, Death did not take her slow,_  
 _She told me that she loved me, but Death said she had to go,_  
 _Death turned her face to ashes, Death turned her into dust,_  
 _And left me here forgotten as if it were just._  
  
 _I loved her in the morning, I loved her with a touch,_  
 _I told her I would follow and I would not mind that much,_  
 _She laughed and laughed and told me, love, you haven’t this a need,_  
 _I said I would, and meant I would, and I still do, indeed._  
  
 _Death took her from me quickly, no time to say goodbye,_  
 _No thought for how unfair it is, for all the tears I cry,_  
 _I know it was her time, and yes I know it isn’t fair,_  
 _But still I hope and pray and sing that she will someday be there._  
  
 _So I sing for love unwithered, and I sing for love’s last time,_  
 _That she may someday hear me, though it won’t always rhyme,_  
 _I sing that Death won’t take this, my love for her remain,_  
 _I sing of love and sing of hope and sing through a lover’s pain._  
  
Phila coughs the sand from her lungs and tries to sing. But even to her own ears, the words sound hollow without Emmeryn to listen.  
  
Her face twists into a sneer, more at herself than anything else. What point is there in singing when the very air in her lungs is empty?  
  
She is gone. And— something in Phila feels she is not dead, but the crushing hopelessness remains. A knight without her lady is, at best, lost and purposeless. Phila has long ago stopped serving Emmeryn soley out of duty, but first and foremost, that was what they were. Before now. Before the fall.  
  
She could die here, she supposes, lying back on the hot sand. It’d be easy. Let herself waste away, drown in this sand-filled mass grave of Plegia’s enemies. Let the bandits raid her corpse, the animals eat her skin and muscle, the buzzards pick her body clean, the sun and sand scour her bones and bury them beneath miles and miles of sand. Let it happen. Let life and death take from her what it has not already stolen. She gives it willingly.  
  
Waiting for herself to starve to death, however, is frustratingly dull and takes a very long time. And, she supposes, there are still reasons for her to live. Her children still have one mother, broken as she is— she would be the cruel one, were she to let herself die here.  
  
 _Hup_. She flips herself over with once-healthy arms, and crawls onto a rocky ridge. She will go east, then, and if she dies along the way— well, then she was not fit to be the mother of her two sons to begin with. If she cannot walk to them, she will crawl. If she cannot walk to her death with her dignity, she will crawl to it with what is left.  
  
She curses Naga, for a bit, while she goes perhaps one foot per five minutes. She curses Naga for taking Emmeryn before anyone was ready, for allowing this to happen. She is, of course, still having trouble even believing that Emmeryn is dead. It feels more like a cruel joke. Phila has always been easily-trusting, always first to look past previous misdoings, try to see both sides of the situation.  
  
It is usually, in fact, surprising that Emmeryn was the one who needs to be convinced to look at something in this way. Emmeryn was always kind, outwardly warm and friendly, but it took work to get her to open up to anyone but her siblings. She prioritized those she let in above all else, and devoted herself wholly to the betterment of Ylisse. If it meant peace talks, she had peace talks. If it meant all-out war?  
  
Anything for her country.  
  
It was not healthy. That was what Phila was for. And from there, falling in love was as easy as it was for Phila to carry a tune. They fell in step as if it were a dance both of them were born to do, acted together, spoke and empathzied on a level none else could access.  
  
And when they fell, they fell together.  
  
Phila comes to a stop with a sickening lurch in her stomach and a cold feeling up her backbone. Did Emmeryn fall? Phila could not have seen— and somehow, she knew.  
  
Oh, gods. She jumped.  
  
At this revelation, Phila felt she really was going to be sick. She gags, heaves dry, salt rises in her throat and taints her mouth, and she spits it onto the sand. But there is nothing. Her stomach is empty. It is not as satisfying as she thought it may be.  
  
It chills her that she knows exactly why Emmeryn did it— Emmeryn has never had any qualms about sacrificing herself if it meant achieving her goals. Anything for Ylisse. Anything for her siblings, for her children, for Phila. It has always worried Phila, somewhere in the back of her mind, but the possibility they’d be forced into that sort of corner was always so far away, she could ignore it.  
  
And she had _failed_.  
  
This thought knocks the breath from her lungs. She falls to her side, digging her blunt, bloody fingernails into the skin of her upper arms. Her arrow wound bleeds onto her hand and she does not care in the slightest. It feels, for an agonizingly long minute, that all the air in the world has disappeared.  
  
Her lungs ache when she gasps for breath. She coughs on sand. She cries, hot, caustic tears that do not heal, just sting her sunburned cheeks as they dot the sand below her. It feels something like her heart is curling up and dying. She breathes her regret in and out with the shaky air in her lungs, eyes screwed shut tight enough that the fierce desert sunset cannot reach past her lids. She is there, doubled over herself, useless legs trailed behind her like lead weights, as the sun turns the Dead Desert red as blood.  
  
She runs out of tears when the sun sinks below the horizon. Her heart still beats— a traitorous steady beat that is missing Emmeryn’s pressed next to it. Disappointing, really, that the realization of what had happened didn’t kill her. But Phila figures that, by now, she might as well be dead.  
  
But she licks her cracked lips and shifts back to her stomach, and keeps going. The desert night is cold— Phila will be colder. She will go until she cannot anymore.


	3. Draw a Melody from the Air

Frederick is sure that Plegia is a lovely country to visit. He knows full well it, like any country, is filled with people both good and bad and everywhere in-between. There are those that wish a grisly end for all Ylisseans, there are those who would prefer a more pacifistic solution, and there are those who really don’t care one way or another about foreign affairs. Cognitively, he knows this.  
  
Emotionally, he wishes nothing more than an end to Plegia in general— because, in all honesty, _fuck_ Plegia and _fuck_ their king and _fuck_ their summoned undead and _fuck their sand._  
  
Gods, the sand is the worst part. It scours and scratches armor and gets everywhere in joints and wagon axles, and when it gets near skin it itches and is generally unpleasant-- not to mention they'll be washing sand out of everything come laundry day.  
  
"They call this the Dead Desert," Robin tells him, looking at her notebook. She has it clipped open on a writing-board resting between her arm and her breast. "It's where Plegians dump the bodies of their enemies. Traitors, enemy soldiers, spies, that sort of thing. They say the bodies not looted by raiders or scavenged by buzzards end up dried and preserved under the sand, mummified without tombs."  
  
The thought of standing on infinite corpses makes Frederick shudder. "Barbaric."  
  
"Well, it makes a little more sense than unmarked mass graves," Robin comments. Then she clears her throat. "Not my business, of course-- I'm a tactician, and you can't strategize with dead people. They're not very good listeners."  
  
Her attempt at dry humor does very little for the crawling of Frederick's skin. She clears her throat.  
  
"Trust me, I want to be out of this desert as much as you do," Robin says. "As soon as Kellam and the others get back from Risen patrol, we'll be out of here. Doubtlessly the Plegians want us gone just as much."  
  
Frederick has to take a second to pair the name with the face, and even then it’s a little fuzzy. He scowls at the sand, scraping at the layer covering the rocks with the butt of his spear. Desert can’t always be just desert, after all— sometimes, poking out from the sand, there are ridges and cliffs and formations. The geography of the area tells that a river was here once, and then it dried up. Perhaps it was even an oasis in the desert, a tributary of one of Plegia’s main rivers. Frederick has a hard time believing that Plegia could’ve once been a fertile river territory, but then, they say Ylisse was once gassy swamplands. Funny how the world changes.  
  
The sand is a blindingly vibrant gold in the afternoon sunlight. Against the blue sky, distant and dry as the red stone mountains on the horizon or the towers of the capital city of Dahiri, it hurts to look at. Frederick has never imagined a clear sky to look cold or inhospitable, and yet, the Dead Desert manages to make it so. He scans the horizon, then looks back over the rocks.  
  
So it is a surprise, to him, when he spots a telltale splotch of dark brown not six feet from where he and Robin stand.   
  
He investigates. Robin joins him.  
  
“Is that blood?” she asks.  
  
“The dead don’t bleed,” Frederick says. Bloodstains tell a story, but one has to be adept at reading them.  
  
“It’s recent,” she says. “A day old, give or take. The sun and sand dry things out so quickly out here, it’s impossible to tell for sure without expertise I don’t have.” But of course Robin knows this. She, Frederick thinks, not without a roll of his eyes, clearly just knows everything.  
  
“And there’s a trail,” she notes. Frederick could tell that. It’s more a trench than a trail, a trench smeared with blood on the sand and rocks. It leads onto a ridge, and then east— in a distressingly straight line.  
  
Robin trots off before Frederick can protest, her heavy silk cloak over her head to block out the sun and shade her face. (It is, after all, made for this weather.) Frederick follows, shaking sand out of his heavy armored boots with each step. Damned mages and their blasted being able to travel quickly in this blighted sand.  
  
“Milady,” he pants, already worn out from the short but heavy and hot trek. “Tactician. Where are you going?”  
  
“There’s someone alive on the end of this trail,” she says. “And I intend to find them. And if they’re not alive, well, we could at least learn who they are.” She lets herself chuckle. “Crivens. We go out to hunt Risen for coin, and come back with a new ally. Chrom is going to love this.”  
  
Frederick could think of what Chrom would say— at least, he could hazard a guess to what he’d say before recent events. Given that Chrom has, understandably, not been himself, Frederick wasn’t sure. But nobody could deny that Chrom loved making new friends, and this was the exact reason Emmeryn had always kept him out of diplomatic negotiations. In the dangerous game that was Ylissean diplomacy, a good-hearted prince with a penchant for charming people but no idea how to wield or detect such a power would be eaten alive— eaten alive, spat out, stomped on, and then ground into the dirt. It was in everyone’s best interest that this not happen.  
  
He probably should’ve stopped and trudged back. But for some ass-faced reason, he didn’t, and continued following the trail in the sand with Robin. Whoever this person is, crawling and bleeding all over the sand, they seem to be determined enough not to bother with turning.  
  
“Up there,” Robin calls, and runs ahead to a blop of something fuzzy that Frederick can’t see. Someone in Ylissean armor— he can tell by the way it shines, even tarnished and dull. It’s designed that way, to gleam like mirrors in sunlight, possibly to blind enemies. That, he doesn’t know. (Robin probably does.)  
  
Whoever it is, they are still crawling, and appear to have been doing so for some time. They don’t seem to give a rat’s ass how slow, frustrating, or undignified it is— or maybe they’re unable to walk. Either way, Robin respects that sort of determination.  
  
“Hello,” she says, slowing her pace to a walk beside them. “You’re very determined.”  
  
“Yes,” the bedraggled crawler grunts. Their voice sounds dry and their breathing is labored.  
  
“Where are you going?” Robin asks. “Maybe we’re going the same way.”  
  
“Ylisse,” they grunt again.  
  
“I know a few people in Ylisse,” Robin remarks. “You may know them.”  
  
“Doubt it,” they grunt. “Looking for… the royal family.”  
  
“Oh, you must know them, then,” Robin says. “I’m Prince Chrom’s tactician, Robin. Pleased to meet you, ser…”  
  
The crawler stops, and squints at Robin. Their face is dirty, smeared with grime and blood, and Robin can’t tell at first glance their gender (not like she could anyway, these things being as they are). “You’re… bluffing.”  
  
“I’m not,” Robin promises, crouching. “You look like you could use a hand.”  
  
They grunt. “Damned… fall. Can’t feel my legs. I have to… have to get to Ylisse.”  
  
Frederick catches up at this point. “Milady,” he calls. “Kindly don’t run so fast. If I lose you here in this hellhole, milord Chrom will be most unhappy.”  
  
“I’m a big girl, Frederick,” Robin calls back. “I know my way around a glorified sand pit, filled with corpses or no. Anyway, I’m making friends.”  
  
“Friends?” the crawler grunts, doubtful. “Fred… Frederick?”  
  
Frederick pauses. The last time he’d seen someone looking this much like they’d been pulled off the bottom of a giant’s foot, it was when the last member of a missing patrol group stumbled back onto the castle grounds tripping over his feet and babbling about bears, mad with fear and delirious with hunger. The crawler now squinted at him with sunken eyes, pale matted hair dangling in their face and dingy with blood and sand. Blood from a broken nose crusted on their lips and chin, and they slurred through teeth half-broken. But the features of this crawler, Frederick knew— knew the person behind them, that’d gone with him through knight training and teased him when he clung to the rulebooks too much, that hummed and whistled and sang through training exercises and had a gift for pulling music out of anything and everything. She had been so full of life, it took Frederick a moment to connect the dots to the creature in this sorry state.  
  
“Phila?” he finally says.  
  
“Assbiscuit,” she replies. “I get knocked off my mount, and… this’s the reward I get for service? Dumped in a pit of dead bodies with legs that don’t work?”  
  
“You’ve kept your sharp tongue through a week of being dead,” Frederick remarks. “I suppose I don’t have to worry, then.”  
  
“Couldn’t have been a week,” Phila insists, trying to push herself further up on weakened arms. “Started going yesterday… I think. Can’t remember. Sand, you know… dries you out. Can’t think straight.”  
  
“Let’s sort this out back at camp,” Robin decides. “Frederick, can you carry her? I don’t think she can walk.”  
  
“Can’t,” Phila admits, as Frederick scoops her up with ease. Sand pours out of the cracks in her dented armor. “Get these… blasted things to work again. Won’t move when… I tell them to. Fuckin’… there, see?” Absolutely nothing happens. “I tell ‘em, tell them… move, damn you. They don’t. Load of dragon dung.”  
  
“Indeed,” Frederick says. “It is indeed a load of dragon dung.”  
  
“Mm,” Phila agrees. “You got stronger. I remember… I used to beat you up, when we were kids.”   
  
Frederick sighs. He does remember that. He has since chalked it up to Phila needing to feel superior over a twin brother that can do anything better than she could. He admits he hadn’t expected to be exchanging memories with his old friend when Emmeryn was dead and the entire country was grieving, but he supposes it was either take it in stride or go insane from despair. There was time to cave to emotions later.  
  
“You remember what I said,” Robin says as she leads the way back to camp. “When we get back to the Garisson with the dispatch, Chrom is going to _love_ this.”  
  
‘Love’ was, perhaps, not an appropriate choice of words. But there was no doubt he’d react, very strongly.


	4. Scales and Arpeggios

Chrom paces in front of the infirmary door. Frederick and Robin exchange glances when he finally removes his hand from his face.  
  
"It's not more death," he says dryly. "I'm grateful for that. But Emm always says-- said-- to ask more questions, so I'm wondering how."  
  
"Have you considered divine intervention?" Robin ventures.  
  
Chrom scowls, like he's about to say something mean, and then shakes his head. "It just doesn't seem rational. We all saw it happen."  
  
"Irrational things happen every day," Robin replies. "I have one of the Doves questioning her, to make sure it's really Phila. Trust me, I find this hard to believe, too."  
  
"If Naga brought _her_ back to life," Chrom begins, gesturing to the infirmary door, and more to himself than anything, "Then why not--" His voice cracks, and he swallows hard and looks away. "No. I can't say that. It's not like Phila asked to be spared, is it?"  
  
Robin gives him a long, even stare. Their tactician has a sense of humor, and is often ready with some kind of quip. But now, she's deathly serious.  
  
"I think we'd be overlooking resources to not use Phila, whether she is what she says or not," she says. "An ally falls into our laps, we'd be foolish not to sieze the opportunity."  
  
"She can't walk, Robin," Chrom says.  
  
"We can work around this," Robin replies. "My half-sister is a mechanist. I can write her, call in a favor. A few strings pulled, some help from the Doves, and we'll have a functional combat automaton. Who needs working legs with this kind of technology?"  
  
"You remember this _now?_ " Chrom questions. "We don't need to involve your spies in this any more than we have."  
  
"Technically, they were your sister's spies," Robin says cooly. "And now yours."  
  
Chrom bristles. "Robin."  
  
"They are," Robin says. "You know we can't solve every problem with force."  
  
"Yes, well, the spies didn't help all that much preventing this, did they?" Chrom points out.  
  
"We're off-topic," Robin digresses. "The point is, I think we should see about combat preparation for Phila once she's healed, if she decides to stay. We do need all the help we can get."  
  
Chrom sighs. His hair is mussed from running his hands through it, and he hasn't slept right nor shaved since Emmeryn's fall. "We need to talk to Phila. See what she thinks."  
  
It is Frederick who opens the door. One of the Ylissean White Doves is inside, talking to Phila in a way that makes it very clear this is an interrogation, though he gives a short bow to Robin when she enters. Phila tugs idly at the sleeves of her new shirt, already looking far healthier and more hydrated than she had when Frederick and Robin found her in the desert.  
  
“That’s enough, Fletcher,” Robin says. Fletcher takes his leave, and Phila looks up. She scowls, her hands falling. She stares hard at Chrom.  
  
“Doing alright?” Chrom asks. “Do you need me to get the healers to get you anything?”  
  
Phila stares at him for awhile, normally-vibrant eyes ringed in shadows. Then she looks away. “No. I’m doing fine.”  
  
It’s a bigger lie than when Robin says she doesn’t know where food missing from the pantry goes and everyone knows it. Chrom tries again. “What do you remember from before the fall?”  
  
She’s quiet again. “I remember enough to know what happened.”  
  
“And Emmeryn,” Chrom brings up. “You know she’s…”  
  
“Gone,” Phila finishes. “I know. And she jumped, didn’t she? She sacrificed herself. Gods, I— I knew it.” She swallows hard. Her mouth still feels dry, and despite that, she licks her cracked lips.  
  
That’s a surprise. “What do you mean, you knew it?” Robin asks.  
  
“I mean, that’s so _like_ her,” Phila tries to explain, staring at her knees. “Always dignified, to the very end, you know? She knew she was going to die up there somehow. But she had the choice on how to end it, so she took it. Like chess. She likes chess.”  
  
“We played chess once,” Robin remembers. “Sort of. When we talked at Ylisstol, she told me. There were lots of metaphors in that conversation.”  
  
“I hope you weren’t comparing our soldiers to chess pieces,” Chrom protests. “Our people are not disposable weapons to be used and discarded.”  
  
Robin takes too long to reply for Chrom’s taste, because he sighs and looks away. But if any is a time they are allowed to be cynical, it is now.  
  
“If there’s anything you need, let us know,” Chrom says to Phila. “It’s a… difficult time for everyone. We’re still regrouping as a unit.”  
  
Phila looks out the window of the infirmary. If she squints through those lacy gingham curtains, she can barely make out the skyline of Ylisstol past the tree line. Afternoon sunlight is turning the air golden. It’s going to be a clear summer night— it doesn’t feel right, somehow, that the sun still shines without its brightest ray. It should be dark and gloomy, the sky itself weeping for what the world has lost, but that isn’t how it works. They held the vigil under a cloudless sky in the late June sunshine. The first day of summer, and Emmeryn is dead.  
  
“She isn’t dead,” Phila murmurs. “I’d know if she were.”  
  
“That’s—“ Chrom tries to say.  
  
“Say I’m insane if you want,” Phila interrupts. Her hands clench in the quilt over her lap. “Say I’m mad with dehydration, still. I don’t care. She’s not dead. Just out there, somewhere we can’t reach. She promised me—“ Her voice breaks.  
  
Frederick reaches out to set a hand on her shoulder. “Phila…”  
  
“She promised!” Phila insists, hands shaking. She whirls, looks at Frederick with desparation written all over her face. She looks so much older than she did last week. “Th-the day before they took her. Sh-she told me, told me she wo-wouldn’t die until— until Ylisse was good and ready, th-that’s what she told me. _Promised_ me. Y-you know Emm, she d-doesn’t break— doesn’t break her promises, you know it— f-for certain! Freddy, please!”  
  
Frederick looks away. Phila’s face drops in betrayal. Of all people, even Frederick doesn’t believe her. “I know,” he begins. “I know the news is still new, to you. Perhaps it will take awhile for it to set in.”  
  
“Freddy,” Phila tries to say. But then she loses what words she had left. It hurts Frederick more to see the tears roll down her sunken cheeks than any wound he sustained in the last battle.  
  
It’s Robin who speaks. “I think she has a point.”  
  
Chrom fixes her with a stare. “What?”  
  
“I said, I think she has a point,” Robin repeats. “Not everything is rational or logical. Sometimes you just… know things.”  
  
“Not another one with premonitions,” Chrom sighs.  
  
“Mine may save your life, mister,” Robin points out.  
  
Phila rubs the tears from her eyes, stubbornly blinking them back. Her eyes are still puffy, but it’s a good sign she has enough water in her that tears can form. “How do you people get anything done?”  
  
Robin raises her hand. Chrom gestures to Robin. Phila takes that as an answer.  
  
“We were discussing our options,” Robin says, shifting through her papers and seguing effortlessly into a new topic. “I don’t know how you’re still alive. But Libra says the break in your spine is clean, and they’ll be able to mend it over the course of your next few appointments. The staves have done all they can for your arm; all that’s left is for that to heal naturally. You’ll get started on thicker soups soon after you get sick to death of broth. As for the consequences of the broken spine…”  
  
Phila grimaces. “I don’t think staves can fix that.”  
  
“Well, they can mend the tissues, to prevent infection, and all that,” Robin corrects. “But it seems you’ve lost most of the use of your lower body. I’m sorry. Some things can’t be fixed.”  
  
Phila is quiet for a long time. Then, “ _Fuck_. I probably should’ve stayed still."  
  
“I think the damage was done either way,” Robin replies. “Once we finish treatment here, you have a few options.”  
  
“Let me guess,” Phila sighs. “I could go back to the castle, go back to my parent’s house, or stay on as an advisor?”  
  
“Right on the nose,” Robin comments. “Though, ah… you don’t have to be an advisor. But we’ll discuss that later, after I’ve written a few letters. Can’t build automatons overnight, and all.”  
  
Phila stares out the window. “The city’s so close,” she murmurs. “My boys are in that castle. I hope August is taking his naps on time. He hates naps."  
  
“I’ll take care of it,” Robin promises. “When treatment is finished, do you want to go see them?”  
  
After a silence, she nods. “I’d like that.”  
  
The healers come in next, in response to Robin’s politely-worded request to the Ylisstol hospital, and shoo everyone back out. Frederick excuses himself to go run drills, and Chrom follows Robin to her study.  
  
“Technically,” he says, once he’s in his favorite chair in the corner and she’s at her writing desk, “August is the next heir to Ylisse.”  
  
“August is two,” Robin replies. “And because of that and that rule-by-blood thing you have going, you’re next in line. Now whether that extends to any children you may have, I don’t know.”  
  
“It might?” Chrom scratches his head. “I don’t know, either. That whole business with heir apparents and heir presumptives is confusing.”  
  
Robin hums thoughtfully, and jots down “Ylissean royal inheritence" on a parchment pinned to the board above her desk titled _RESEARCH TOPICS_. It’s under _Applications of compound eye potion, Snake lost arms when, Cuttlefish, Spymastery for beginners,_ and _Torture methods of old Plegia._ Chrom has long since stopped asking.  
  
“I think I know what you were going to say,” Robin says, opening her desk and pulling out a new griffon-feather quill and a bottle of ink. “Before we went to talk to Phila.”  
  
“Do you,” Chrom mumbles. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. You, Robin, are a never-ending font of knowledge both useful and non.”  
  
“You were going to ask,” she says. “If Naga spared Phila— Phila, of all people!— then why couldn’t She spare your sister? But you know that isn’t fair to Phila.”  
  
Chrom hums, taking one of her books off the shelves and idly examining it. This one is Griffons through the Ages, pulled from right next to something so old and musty from Plegia that Chrom thinks it must be magic that held it together long enough to put it on the shelf, and another little volume called The Wind’s Quivering Temptations. Although Robin is a collector of all types of knowledge, she’s terrible at organizing them. A disorganized genius, prone to hoarding food in her study for reasons Chrom can’t discern. Perhaps Robin doesn’t even know why she does it.  
  
Robin pushes aside a stack of old dishes for the map she had underneath. “I can understand why you thought it,” she says. “You’re angry.”  
  
“That’s not even it,” Chrom admits, turning Griffons through the Ages over in his hands and tracing the embossed attempt-at-a-griffon (actually a sphynx with the wrong head, Robin has told him) with calloused fingers. “I’m upset. I _know_ Phila, have since I was five years old. I think she and Frederick were what kept Emmeryn sane through those early years of her rule. And while Frederick kept Lissa and me from burning down the castle, I know it was Phila who really kept Emmeryn from following the same dark path as our father did. She was like— like a light, you know? And now looking at her is like visiting the house you grew up in that you thought burned down, only to find that it’s just home to dust mites and mildew.”  
  
“And the weirdest part is,” he muses, rolling his Branded shoulder. “I do kind of believe her, when she says Emmeryn is still alive. When she says she feels it.”  
  
“Do you feel it?” Robin asks.  
  
“No,” Chrom replies. “But I think now that Phila’s said it, it makes sense. Maybe she survived the fall, somehow, maybe the same way Phila did. Knowing her, she’s pulled herself out of the body pit and walked off in search of answers.” He chuckles a little, and nods to the study door. “Feels like she’s going to walk through that door right now and demand an envoy to Plegia, to try again and ask why Gangrel tried to kill her— again. Maybe over tea. Do Plegians even drink tea?"  
  
The door latch clicks, and Lissa opens the door. “Chrom, I found—“ she begins, then abruptly cuts herself off when she sees both of them there. “Oh. Sorry. Private conversation?”  
  
“No, no,” Chrom assures her. “Something wrong?”  
  
“I found Marth behind the smithy,” she says. “She’s drunk and I can’t lift her on my own. Help?”  
  
Chrom shakes his head with a sigh. “Yeah, I’ll help. I should let Robin get back to work, anyway.”  
  
“We can keep talking another time,” Robin offers, giving him a little smile. “You’re always welcome.”  
  
Chrom gives her a tired smile, and follows Lissa out of the study. When the latch clicks shut behind them, Robin adds _living intelligent ressurrection_ and _do plegians drink tea_ to her research list.


	5. Coda; Play with Hesitation

Phila should be grateful that her breakfast in the morning now is oatmeal instead of broth— Robin snuck in some honey and Plegian spices that make it much more palatable, and with Frederick’s fresh blackberries, it’s almost tasty. Phila is no longer feeling half-dead, though she still can’t move her legs, but she’s getting so bored she's started carving horses into the bedposts with her jackknife. That is the day Frederick introduces her to the chair.  
  
It is too wide to fit through narrower doorways, and there’s a space below the seat for feet to go. It has four wheels in total, and the two larger ones have handles and are fixed while the smaller ones swivel freely. It has two handles on the back, presumably for pushing. Robin tells her it’s made to move as fast as her arms can push it, and over rough terrain, with limitations. It cannot climb stairs, for instance, unless she tries really hard. Perhaps the worst sort of insult to injury, the Ylissean coat of arms is painted on the back. Phila hates it.  
  
“It’s just a temporary solution,” Robin’s voice echoes in Phila’s head as she pushes her chair down one of the outside corridors of the Garrison. “Just until I get in touch with my brother— the little one, not the older one, the older one is an ass-- he knows a guy who can get... well, I’ll have to tell you that part later.”   
  
The Garrison is fairly straightforward and squareish in its layout, which is fortunate for Phila, considering she’s visited maybe twice. The yard is in the center, with weapon racks and training dummies and practice targets, and a direct path to the armory. There’s a triangular message board just off the north stairs to the exterior walk there, full of notices and announcements.  
  
Phila passes it on her way by. _“Archery contest 6/22!!”_ one note says. _“All entrants welcome!!*  Test your skills against others for fun!!”_ And then _“*Except Virion”_ as a footnote. Another note says _“Disappointed by your lack of noble skills? Sign up for Maribelle's dance lessons and be lacking no longer! Bathing highly encouraged.”_ Several names are scribbled below that Phila can’t read. A third note is a chore schedule, with the note _“REMINDER: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE SQUIRRELS: THEY ARE CUTE BUT NASTY AND WILL BITE OFF YOUR FUCKING FINGER.”_  
  
It’s somewhat amusing. Phila lets herself chuckle, just a bit.  
  
The sparring yard is occupied. Robin, hair pulled up and back into a bun, has a pair of daggers in one hand and the other on her hip. She taps her foot impatiently. She’s in knee-length trousers and soft leather shoes, and her undershirt cuts low on her chest and back and fits her snugly. Her skin shimmers in the late June heat. On the ground, Chrom wheezes. He's shirtless, weird one-sleeved tanline on display. One gloved hand clutches Falchion.  
  
"That's the fourth time," he complains. "You've thrashed me soundly since this morning. Can't we break for lunch?"  
  
"Nope," Robin says, twirling a dagger. "On your feet, Chrom! The bandits and brigands won't show you any mercy, so nor will I!"  
  
Chrom sits up, running a hand through his sweaty hair. The longer bits are tied back with twine. "Come on, Robin," he says. "Please?"  
  
Robin rolls her eyes and sheathes her knives. "Since you asked so nicely," she says, offering him a hand. Smiling gratefully, he takes it-- only for her to yank him forwards and knee him in the gut, then pin him to the ground, a knife at his throat and his hands pinned. Chrom's face flushes, and Phila can tell it ain't just from the heat.  
  
"You keep assuming your enemy shares your values," she tells him. "If you treat every fight as a duel, you will die. Have I made myself clear?"  
  
Chrom nods rapidly. "Crystal," he croaks.  
  
Robin stands, sheathing her knife once more. "Take five," she tells Chrom, pulling him to his feet. "You're as miserable as an earless jackrabbit. Get some water."  
  
Chrom nods, and stumbles over to the water pump. He fills the trough, then gets on his knees and dunks his head into it with enough force to make the water slosh onto the gravel.  
  
Robin leans on the fence nearest Phila and lets her hair down. She shakes it out and runs her fingers through it, then ties it back up. "Good morning."  
  
"Good form," Phila comments. "I knew someone once who was shoddy with a lance, but give her knives and she could cut the ear off a fly from a hundred yards.”  
  
“Thank you, I think,” Robin says. “Do flies have ears?”  
  
“I don’t know, but if they did, they’d be very small,” Phila guesses.  
  
Robin quirks her head in thought. "I'll have to look that up. But flies and ears aside," she turns, leaning on her elbows on the fence and looking at Phila. "Are you doing alright? Need anything?"  
  
Phila shrugs. She feels remarkably coherent, though coherent is the only nameable word she feels. She feels like she's walking down a long hallway and a torrent of anger, frustration, despair, hopelessness, and pain is going to come crashing onto her once the shock fades and she remembers what emotion is like. "I'll be alright. I used to tell Emmeryn all the time that everything is transitory and that includes funky moods."  
  
Robin looks at her square in the face. Phila glances to the side. (It feels wrong to look, but the way Robin is leaning, her cleavage is at exactly the same level as Phila's face. _Nice_ , some part of Phila thinks. _Oh my gods,_ a saner part thinks. _Your wife, who you loved more than anything in this world, has been dead for all of four days and you're looking at another woman's cleavage. Shame on you._ _Yes, but also,_ the first part thinks, _nice_.)  
  
"I know you _will_ be alright," Robin says. "But are you now?"  
  
Phila thinks. She can't quite put it into words. "It's like this," she tries to say. "Emmeryn used to tell me this all the time— I know what it feels like to feel things. I know the things I'm supposed to feel, and I know how to make it seem like it's fine in front of people. But when I don't have to pretend, I forget what it's like to feel anything at all."  
  
Robin nods. She doesn't say anything for awhile. Phila gets the impression that she understands.  
  
"If you need to talk to someone," Robin says. "Let me know. I can't promise good advice, but I'll listen."  
  
"I'll do that," Phila nods. She will not. "Thanks, Robin." It's a bit hypocritical of her, that she's been the one all this time to advocate fostering an environment of communication and emotional health and now refuses to contribute to such a thing when she herself needs it. But dealing with emotions is hard and she doesn't want to do it right now, so there.  
  
"Now that that's out of the way," Robin decides, standing back up and cracking her knuckles. "What are your thoughts on dragons?"  
  
That was an unexpected turn. Phila blinks. "What?"  
  
"Well, wyverns," Robin corrects herself. "I mean, I think my little brother knows a guy who knows someone else who had a friend who rode a fully-grown dragon once. Or was that something I read?" She frowns a minute. "Anyway, yeah. Thoughts?"  
  
"What… about wyverns?" Phila furrows her eyebrows. She gets the sense that Robin has a plan.  
  
"Well, it's a little soon," Robin begins. "But I got to thinking about your potential— if you choose to join the Shepherds, I mean. You don't have to, and you can stay here while thinking about it if you need to, of course, but this is all if right now. But, in short, I think you'd do well with a wyvern. Riding one into battle, or just having one as a companion. It'd do you good."  
  
Phila isn't sure what to think. "Riding into battle?" she questions. "You _do_ realize why I'm in this chair, right?"  
  
"Of course, of course," Robin says. "Which is why I'm suggesting a wyvern as opposed to a pegasus. Even with the best saddles, pegasi don't generally have the physical capability to keep their rider from falling off mid-flight if said rider can't grip with their knees. Wyverns, however, are larger, hardier, and the way their scales work, it'll keep the rider in there securely. Plus, dragons."  
  
"Dragons," Phila repeats, raising an eyebrow. "I'm not… _against_ dragons? I guess?"  
  
"Oh, good," Robin says. "I'll write my brother and take care of things from there, and it should be ready by next week."  
  
Phila has a sense she's just accidentally agreed to something that will greatly alter her life— for better or worse, she can't say.


	6. Intermezzo

_Pietra,_   
  
_This is your sister. The older one, not the younger one— at least, I think that's still the case. I've been having a few… memory problems as of recently. I can't actually remember very much from before April of this year, and unfortunately, that includes you. I remember you, and your twin (what was her name? Please remind me, I remember she's a sweetheart and I miss her), and my twin, you know, the jackass? What are they up to nowadays?_   
  
_Anyway, I'm writing you to call in a favor. A friend of mine needs a wyvern, and I'm pretty sure you know someone who can get me one. It's a long story as to why, but pegasi are no longer an option for her, and I think if she's going to get back onto the figurative horse, a change of mount is necessary. We'll need a very friendly wyvern— one used to long flights at high altitudes. Let me know what you can get._   
  
_Say hi to your mother for me,_   
  
_Robin R. Hawke, Tactician to His Highness Chrom's Order of Shepherds_   
  
_P.S., Chrom doesn't know my real name, and I don't think he could pronounce it either way, so he's better off not knowing._   
  
_P.P.S., Do Plegians drink tea?_

* * *

 

  
The letter is sealed with a drop of green wax, stamped with the Ylissean royal seal. Robin sends it off with her best raven, Chancellor Cawdsworth, right after breakfast. While much of the Garrison is still waking up, Robin and a few others have been up and about for hours— Robin has posted the day's chore schedule and announcements, done a perimeter sweep, set up the training yard, recieved the supply deliveries for the day, and, as of now, sent off the day's mail. It has been a productive morning.  
  
Chrom approaches her in the corridor, his hair mussed from sleep and his shirt collar half-buttoned. "Robin! Explanation!"  
  
"Good morning, Chrom," she says calmly.  
  
"Don't give me that," Chrom tells her, pushing her agenda down so he can look at her. "I saw the announcement board. What _exactly_ do you mean when you say we're not going to battle against the Plegian army until October?"  
  
Robin raises an eyebrow and takes a sip of her coffee. "You're a smart man, Chrom, I think you can figure it out."  
  
"Do you mean to say we're going to wait here, like sitting ducks, for four months?" Chrom demands. "Gangrel could be on his way to attack us right now! We have to take the fight to him!"  
  
"Chrom, we discussed this," Robin sighs. "You agreed in our last war room meeting that we have to wait and make preparations before going to the battlefield. We're not ready for a major battle right now."  
  
"But four months, Robin?" Chrom runs a hand through his hair. "That's so— that's too long to wait!"  
  
"If we had it my way," Robin replies, "We'd have at least six months' notice. That's time to prepare ballista, formulate a strategy with the Khans, train and equip our armies, stock up supplies for the march—"  
  
"Six months!" Chrom interrupts. "My sister is dead, and that bastard killed her, and you want to wait six months for—"  
  
"Your revenge?" Robin cuts him off right back. "Is that what this is about?"  
  
"It's the right thing to do," Chrom protests.  
  
Robin sighs. "We'll talk about this later," she says. "I have work to do."  
  
"You can't avoid this forever, Robin!" Chrom calls as she walks away. "You may try, but you can't!" But Robin is already gone before he finishes his sentence.  
  
And now Chrom has succeeded in making himself feel like shit, which is easier than one would expect nowadays. He scowls after Robin leaves, folding his arms. He's not upset, he tells himself. _Liar_ , he replies.  
  
"I'm not upset," he says.  
  
"That's good," someone replies. Chrom turns. Marth is standing there, a bottle of something-or-other in her hand. "Letting things consume your life isn't healthy."  
  
Chrom scoffs. "And what would you know about that?"  
  
Marth puts a hand over her heart. "Now that hurt. I may be the pot calling the kettle black, but our main problems have different origins."   
  
"Do they now," Chrom says.  
  
"Believe it or not, yes," Marth replies, switching the half-empty bottle to her other hand. "It's like… there's a fly buzzing around, right? And it's so irritating, you want to— want to smash it—" she sets the bottle down and slaps her hands together. "Like that. But you have other things to do. Like living, and such."  
  
Chrom raises an eyebrow. "Are you drunk again?"  
  
"Hungover, yes," Marth corrects him. "Drunk, no. I don't drink in the mornings. Do you get my point?"  
  
 "Who keeps letting you in here?" Chrom wonders. "How do you keep getting in? You're not part of the Shepherds."  
  
"The gate was open," Marth says. "Robin has a point, don't you think?"  
  
"I wouldn't call it revenge," Chrom protests. "It's— it's justice. It's the right thing to do."  
  
Marth gives him a long look, with those blue eyes far too old for her body. She's not that much older than Chrom, but somehow, she seems both older and younger at the same time. It's strange. Chrom wonders if that's what the mask was for.  
  
"Think about it," she says. "Can you come up with any reason why Robin may not be as eager as you are to fight the king of Plegia?"  
  
Chrom pauses. Then he frowns, folding his arms and looking at the ground. As far as he's concerned, it's still the right thing to do. He knows he could be wrong— but if it's justice, does it reallly matter? Gangrel needs to die for his crimes. The only way the stupid war will end is if one of them dies, and it's not going to be Chrom.  
  
Marth picks up the bottle. "I'm off to find my dog," she says. "You should talk to Robin. My father taught me to never leave a disagreement unresolved."  
  
And she turns and walks away, leaving Chrom in pensive silence.  
  
Chrom sighs. First Robin's strange avoidance of the inevitable, then Marth being cryptic. If Lissa comes up to him and tries to predict his future, he's going to come to the conclusion that women are impossible and become a monk. It's too early for this. But he's not a fool, and, in fact, also knows better than to leave a disagreement unresolved. It's one of those things Phila told him that stuck.  
  
Robin's study did not start as a study. At first it was an unused storeroom next to one of the empty bunks, full of shelving that mostly collected dust. When Robin joined, she turned it into her study and moved into the room next door, filling it with books a crate at a time. There's a note to order more shelving on the door, which doesn't surprise Chrom at all.  
  
Robin kneels on top of the desk that takes up an entire side of the little room, making notes on a map of Ylisse and Plegia pinned to the wall. She has highways noted with arrows, and Ylisstol and Dahiri both marked with stars. The Garrison is a circle a few inches south of Ylisstol. At least, this is what he's assuming— everything is written in Robin's native language, which Chrom can't read. From hearing her speak it, he could guess if the alphabets were the same, but since they're not, it looks like very elegant spaghetti.  
  
She's muttering to herself in Plegian. It's not the same Plegian Chrom has heard the bandits they've come across speak— a different dialect of the same language. Robin speaks the Plegian that priests and scholars converse in, an old dialect straight from the tongues of the magisters of centuries past. Chrom, who knows little of it except the few terms that are cognate with the common tongue used by diplomats and traders the world over, thinks it sounds dark and heavy, like thunderheads on the horizon. A language storms would speak, if they had tongues.  
  
He knocks on the opened door. Robin starts, jerking her head in his direction, and visibly relaxing when she sees it's just him. She pushes shut a drawer full of discarded dishes with her knee.  
  
"Take a look at this," she says, beckoning him over to her map. She pushes up her glasses on the arched bridge of her nose. "The battlefield is two weeks away by wagon. That means we need a stockpile of rations and supplies for at least that long, plus what we'd need for a battle of this scale. And that's not factoring in how long the battle may take… we have lots of people, and people need to eat."  
  
"I understand," Chrom says. "Say, Robin?"  
  
Robin hums, flipping through one of her books. She makes a few noes with her quill, and then draws a line to what Chrom supposes is the battlefield. It's in the wastes of northern Plegia, a historical battlefield and one of the fronts in the first Great War that his father waged. Chrom remembers the story of that battlefield— as a boy, it was one of his favorites, and he hung on excitedly to every word as his father recounted, in masterful detail, how he faced Plegia's bloodthirsty warrior-king in single combat while the bloody battle raged around them. The battle was long and difficult, but King Lionel triumphed in the end and took the king's bloodied scimitar and scabbard as a trophy. The very blade hung in a display cabinet in the castle's war room. It was probably still covered with an old curtain— Emmeryn had hated looking at it. It was strange thinking about what he'd do with it now that it wasn't her war room anymore.  
  
The Battle of Dry Seas. King Akram's Scimitar. Chrom hadn't thought about those in years. Was this some sign that he'd be standing where his father stood, all those years ago? The thought didn't sit well in his stomach.  
  
"You're… you grew up in Plegia, didn't you?" Chrom asks.  
  
"What was your first clue?" Robin raises an eyebrow at him, then returns to her notes. "Was it my accent? My skin? The fact I didn't speak a word of your language when we first met? Or maybe the fact you literally met me after I stumbled over the Plegian border?"  
  
Humor— her favorite way of dodging questions. "Do you remember much about it?"  
  
That gives her pause. "I used to stare at the cathedral ceilings for hours," she remembers. "They always had the most beautiful murals and mosaics on the insides. Sometimes it was stained glass, this massive dome all of colorful pieces, made to look like the sky. One of the towers had a big stone ceiling, a perfect half-sphere, enchanted to turn with the earth and mimic the night sky exactly, whether it was day or night. Sometimes, when I could sneak away, I'd find a spot right in the center and lie on the floor, and I could swear I could see it turning."  
  
"What about the people?" Chrom presses. "Did you know anyone?"  
  
"I'm sure there's someone that knows me," Robin says. She gives him a look. "What is this about?"  
  
"I'm just curious," Chrom promises.  
  
"You don't sound just curious," Robin replies. She climbs off the desk and stares him down, a suspicious glint in her dark eyes. "What are you trying to learn, Chrom?"  
  
"I want to know about you," Chrom says, and it's a half-truth. He hates lying because it makes him nauseous, but sometimes it's necessary. "You're my tactician and chief advisor, so I thought it'd be a good idea to— make sure I know who you are and where you came from. So no ties worth mentioning?"  
  
"Everybody has ties, that's what makes society function," Robin says. She's still suspicious. "You're not doubting my loyalty, are you?"  
  
"No!" He's shocked at first, but she's neither wrong nor unfounded. "Well, not exactly—"  
  
"Not exactly?" Robin demands.  
  
"Not exactly!" Chrom repeats. He tries to backtrack. "Look, you can't blame me for being a bit suspicious. I thought it was weird how you seemed to be avoiding the upcoming battle, so because of where it is and who it's with, I thought you might have reasons aside from logistical ones."  
  
He can practically see her withdraw. "I'm not a spy," she says. Chrom is mostly just confused how she got there from his question, which he thought was perfectly reasonable.  
 "I never said you were?" His voice pitches up at the end and makes it a question.  
  
"You were thinking it," she says. Before he can deny it, she keeps going. "All the time, you were thinking— how long until she betrays us? How long can she keep this charade going?"  
  
"What? No!" Chrom reels in confusion. "Of course I trust you, Robin! What cause could you have to hide from us?"  
  
Robin takes a shaky breath and puts a hand on her head. "Alright, alright. I believe you." She does not, not in the slightest, but the more she says it, the closer she is to starting to believe it. "That's the thing— I don't know. Maybe I really am a spy and I don't remember. Maybe I'm here to— maybe I'm here to kill you and we don't even know! How would we?"  
  
"That's ridiculous," Chrom says. "Why would anyone order that?"  
  
"People will go to extreme lengths to end a power struggle, Chrom," Robin says darkly. "Maybe you should watch your back anyway— even if I have no intention of killing you, someone else might."  
  
Chrom forces a chuckle. "With you at my side, I doubt I have to worry."  
  
She raises an eyebrow, but lets it go. "Well, if all else fails, you have Frederick."  
 "Exactly," Chrom says. "So… you never actually answered my question."  
  
Robin is quiet for a minute. She shuts her book and sets it on the cluttered desk, then takes off her round glasses and cleans them on her shirt. "Even if I did have ties," she says. "Like— like if my siblings are involved, or some friends I've forgotten, it isn't my decision whether or not I do it. It's my job now."  
  
"I don't want you to fight your family," Chrom says.  
  
"I don't think I'll have to," Robin admits. "But this is my job. What I believe doesn't matter, so long as you order it, right? It's your war."  
  
 _It's your war._ The words make him feel a bit sick. But they're true, so he nods. "Yeah. I suppose it is."  
  
The conversation hung there, the air thick with questions unanswered and unasked. To diffuse it before he left, Chrom cleared his throat. "If you need anything," he says. "Let me know. I'll be around."  
  
"I know," Robin says. He's not sure if that's comforting or unnerving. "By the way, tomorrow is laundry day. Make sure you let the others know."  
 "Will do," Chrom promises. "I'll see you around?"  
  
"Probably," Robin murmurs, unfolding another map and taking out a set of dice. Chrom leaves, shutting the door behind him, and exits down the corridor.  
  
Within earshot, Marth ducks behind one of the support beams before Chrom can see her. She writes something down in a little notebook, flips it shut and tucks it in her pocket, and then takes a drink from the bottle in her other hand. It's just a hunch, but it's the only lead she has— even if she doesn't want to consider the possibility.

* * *

 

_Sis,_

_This is Pietra. I'll let my friend know, and send a wyvern your way. I may come with it-- it depends on what my friend asks for in return. Plus, I need to ask you a lot about this whole amnesiac thing, and I can't do that in words. Might bring Avi, it depends on if she's up for a trip. She'll have questions._

_Congrats on the new job! I hope your boss isn't an ass. He'd better appreciate your tactics geekery._

_Mom says hi, and hopes you're eating well._

_Plegians drink tea, but only in the mornings and afternoon, and never without an appetizer. I read that in a book the other day. Your favorite is cinnamon-- I hope you remember that, at least._

_Also, Valm is crazy right now, what with the revolution and such. I almost died yesterday, but until the almost dying part it was kind of fun! Say'ri got mad at me for worrying her though. It's probably best you keep your new army away from Valm for awhile, just, you know. For your own safety, because I'm guessing most of you want to keep your lives? Yeah._

_Pietra M._


	7. Three-Four Summer Waltz

It would be less cruel if she were crazy.  
  
If she heard voices, haunting memories of someone who isn’t dead— if she thought Emmeryn spoke to her through guttering candles or her coffee grounds. If there were anything but ghosts of touches, hands combing through her hair, soft lips on her cheek, a tug of something primal in her core that told her this is real, you are loving, you are loved— if it were something real, something tangible, but something that vanished when she tried to show others, then she could tell herself she was crazy for believing a dead woman still walked, that she was just grieving and she’d move past it.  
  
But with every beat of her heart, she felt it. Once Emmeryn was in her life, her very presence could shift mountains in Phila’s mindscape and nothing at all had changed despite everything and its mother saying she was gone.  
  
There is an instinctual part of a person that tells them what love feels like and where it comes from, something they are taught to quell because positive emotions are soft and squishy and will only bring hurt, and primal things are only things like fear and anger that will allow survival in a dog-eat-dog world. But people still feel it, when they’re very small and have not learned thus. It is what makes a baby stop crying when his mother holds him, what lulls a child to sleep at night better than any lullaby or cradle. It is safety, it is home, and Phila has learned what it is and learned to hold on to it, to cling to it, to keep her heart warm and open and accepting despite what the world will try to do. She has felt it grow warm and strong like the hardiest of sunflowers as her love for Emmeryn grew and bloomed, felt its healthy head nod in the melody of the breeze. It is the love that keeps her singing at a thousand feet in the air.  
  
And she still feels it. It guides her home to her children, children she has before now only ever dreamed of having, tells her _this too shall pass_ as she has said to herself and to those she loves many times before. _This too shall pass,_ it says. Even though it hurts. _She’s still out there._  
  
But this feeling is not one Phila can explain, and her mind is too sound even after three days of being dead and four more of going stir-crazy in an infirmary bed while medics putter and ponder and try to work out why she’s still breathing when she should be in that fucking body pit in the desert. It’s too insane for it to be a theory of someone sound-minded, and too sane for it to be the ramblings of a madwoman. She’s stuck.  
  
The dog helps. The flies don't.  
  
Phila swats at one rubbing its little forelegs together on her forearm, then wipes the gunk off on her trousers. Something about being a cadaver for three days makes her especially appetizing to the little buggers— clearly they haven't gotten the memo that she's not dead yet.  
  
The dog, giant furry head on her lap, wags his tail. Phila keeps scratching his ears. She doesn't know whose dog this is, if he's anyone's, but he's big and soft and she doesn't even mind that it's too hot to be so close to a giant furry animal. He's all black, except for a white splotch on his face, and he has one eye that looks the way he wants it to and the other that does its own thing. He always falls down steps but picks himself right back up and shakes the dirt out of his shaggy coat, and goes right back to chasing insects. He's also huge— Phila has seen dogs this size before, as part of Feroxi bear-hunting parties. They hunt around the northern Ylisse-Plegia border sometimes, with their giant mounts and giant axes and giant furry hats and coats. Everything in Ferox seems to be super-sized.  
  
He's incredibly stupid. Phila loves him.  
  
She's found the gardens. It's kind of nice, even if maneuvering her chair over the gravel path is a little wobbly. The tomatoes and lettuce are growing big and round in the summer heat, and the onions are healthy and leafy. Phila figures that, for a force the size of the Shepherds, it's not always feasible for all their food to be imported. It must save funds and resources to grow some things on the grounds.  
  
Would you look at that, Emm, Phila thinks when she feels a familiar hand squeeze hers, just a bit. All this life, right where you least expect it. If Emmeryn were with her, what would she say? Phila, even though she's known Emmeryn for the better part of her life, doesn't know.  
  
Lissa is outside today, in a chewed-looking straw hat and a frayed green apron with a little golden cross embroidered on the front pocket. She has her sleeves pushed up when she crouches to pick leaves off the healing plants for use in salves. Phila watches her pull the leaves from a yellow dandelion, bundle them with string, and set them in her basket before moving on to the next one. Pick, bundle, place. Pick, bundle, place. She hums a tune while she works. Phila knows it— Phila sang it to her, once upon a time.  
  
She's grown so strong, Phila remarks, perhaps talking to the hallucination of Emmeryn she's been entertaining, if only to avoid the feeling of losing her yet again. You're probably so proud of her. I know I am.  
  
Lissa, as if on cue, sees Phila out of the corner of her eye when she looks up from the dandelions. She stands, brushes the dirt off her skirt and apron, and hurries to Phila's side.  
  
"Do you need anything?" she asks. "You're not in pain, are you?"  
  
"I'm alright," Phila says. She pats Lissa on the shoulder. "Just thinking. Something about this chair makes me feel like a very old woman, reminiscing about the good times."  
  
Lissa's not sure what to say to that. "Are you sure?" she asks. "Libra told me grief can take a long time to set in."  
  
I'm not grieving for someone who isn't dead, Phila wants to say, but doesn't. "I thought getting outside might make me a little cheerier," she says instead. "Since I can't go for a run anymore, and all." She gives a halfhearted chuckle. It doesn't feel right to see Lissa looking stressed and upset, trying to distract herself with work on the living so she has no time to think on the dead. She's only fifteen— she's too young to look so strained.  
  
"There are ways, you know," Lissa says. "I've read about forms of magic that can regrow lost limbs. Since it's just your nerves that are severed, it's probably easier, I think. Not that I'm sure how well it would work, and I don't think it'd be the same, but…"  
  
"Nothing will be the same," Phila replies, and it's harsher than intended. "Whatever happens."  
  
Lissa falters. "I just thought… I don't know. I know this must be hard on you."  
  
Not as hard as not knowing, Phila thinks. "You know me," she says instead. "I try not to let things get me down."  
  
"You're still singing?" Lissa asks.  
  
That, Phila can't lie about, even to make Lissa feel better. She lets her false optimism droop. "I can't think of a reason to."  
  
Lissa's face falls. "Yeah."  
  
Phila watches the leaves of the sage plants flutter in the warm breeze. Sweat runs down the back of her neck. She's warm, even though her shirt is sleeveless and the lacing at the front is undone. The dog wags his tail, making the onion stems flap wildly in the wind it creates.  
  
"Robin told me she's arranging a service, in a few days," Lissa says. "Not a full funeral, since we don't have a… body, and… well, nobody wants to deal with these affairs here and now. You can come if you want, but you don't have to. Robin thinks it might help people… you know, realize it. We still have a war to prepare for in the meantime."  
 I'm not going to a half-funeral for someone who isn't dead, Phila wants to shout. She doesn't.  Instead she's quiet.  
  
Lissa licks her lips anxiously, fidgeting with the frayed hem of her apron. "Chrom told me…" she hesitates. "He told me you think she's still alive, Phila. Is that true?"  
  
Phila doesn't reply. Someone whistles on the other side of the garden fence, and the dog lets out a big-dog boof bark with his whole body and bounds off towards the whistle, clearing the fence and the blackberry trellis with ease.  
  
 "I can't explain how," she says. "I just know. Do you ever feel something, deep in your heart, and you don't know why?"  
  
Lissa nods.  
  
"It's like that," Phila explains, setting a hand over her heart. "I feel it. I've always been able to. I can feel her loving me from wherever she is, just as strong as she ever did."  
  
"You can tell when people love you?" Lissa asks. "I wish I could do that. I keep thinking everyone I talk to thinks I'm annoying and obnoxious."  
  
"It's a skill learned through years of practice and patience," Phila says. "Or maybe someone saying they love you enough you start to register what it feels like enough to believe them."  
  
Lissa chuckles. "Sounds nice."  
  
"You can learn," Phila promises. "But do you get it?"  
  
"I think so," Lissa nods. "If you find out where she is, like if your heart tells you, can you tell me?"  
  
Phila reaches for her hand and gives it a squeeze. "Of course."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to everyone out there posting their 'phila lives' fics in the philemm tag: i see you, and i salute you. yall are doing good work


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